Rio makes ‘brutally honest’ admission over Amorim’s tenure as he urges boss to ditch quartet who lack ‘physicality’

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·27. Februar 2025

Rio makes ‘brutally honest’ admission over Amorim’s tenure as he urges boss to ditch quartet who lack ‘physicality’

Manchester United clung on to a one-goal advantage for 43 minutes last night to seal a much-needed three points at home to Ipswich Town.

The result only moves the Reds one place higher in the Premier League table in 14th, but their resilient defensive display to see out the win when up against the unrelenting visitors says a lot for the side’s grit, which has – rightfully – been questioned in recent seasons.

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United’s goals came courtesy of Matthijs de Ligt, Harry Maguire and a Sam Morsy own-goal. All three were created via a Bruno Fernandes set-piece – as were the last six goals scored by the team, showing Ruben Amorim and his coaching staff have undoubtedly improved what used to be a flagrant problem area.

For now, though, there remain doubts as to whether the current crop of players has what it takes to fulfil Amorim’s philosophy. From Rio Ferdinand’s perspective, four Reds stick out as being incompatible.

Ferdinand makes ‘brutally honest’ admission after narrow Ipswich win

Amorim has endured a turbulent United tenure thus far. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

“I think if we’re being brutally honest, there hasn’t been the progress that we all anticipated,” said the six-time Premier League winner on TNT Sports.

“Where he came from, how successful he had been and the silverware he brought to Sporting, the anticipation of him coming was like, ‘Wow! What an opportunity we’ve got now with this young manager’, and it hasn’t transferred here.

“I sat with him the other day, and you can see there’s a desire, there’s a work ethic behind the scenes, and he’s nipping at everything to try and get this right and turn it around, but things haven’t been smooth for him, and he hasn’t managed to get it to where he wants to at this point in time.

“I think he needs to just get to the end of the season, really regroup and then start building again, building the team and coaching the team because right now they’ve been stuttering along, and that’s probably being polite.

“I watched Sporting a few times, in Europe especially. They were an athletic, dynamic team. That was one of the staples of that team, the hallmarks of that good team that was winning things. This team aren’t a mobile, dynamic team. If you look through the heartbeat of this team, they have other qualities, but being physical, having the ability to overrun teams physically – they don’t have that capacity.”

When pressed on whether Joshua Zirkzee fits the bill of Amorim’s desired players, Ferdinand responded: “No. De Ligt, Maguire, [Rasmus] Hojlund, it’s not their game. So I think he needs to find those types of players with the capabilities of carrying out not only tactically what he wants but the physicality is equally important.”